


A Friend Given by Nature (or by a manipulative incarcerated twin)

by lunadesangre



Series: Little Miracles [12]
Category: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Oz (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Twins, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 02:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1210039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunadesangre/pseuds/lunadesangre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On little brothers, second childhoods, and coping with the horrors of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Friend Given by Nature (or by a manipulative incarcerated twin)

“You’ll have to tell me how it goes, I’ve never had a brother before,” is the first thing Brian tells Cyril when the kid moves in with him.

“It’s easy,” Cyril tells him with childish glee, “you’ll see.” He looks proud as punch to be an expert in something and delighted that Brian calls him his brother, and just _beams_.

Brian smiles back, it’s impossible not to. And for all his apprehensions about taking Cyril in – brain damage, criminal record and all – they get along ridiculously well ridiculously fast. And Cyril doesn’t confuse him with Ryan or think of him as a replacement at all, which was Brian’s (and everyone else’s, very probably including Ryan, though they’d never actually discussed it) main concern. They just get along like two lost brothers who are just happy to have found each other. It should have been more complicated, but it isn’t, and that’s just how it goes.

If he thinks too much about it, the explanation is very simple: Cyril’s brain damage, in Brian’s case, doesn’t make much of a difference. He’s never known the Cyril from _before_ , like Ryan has. He doesn’t have any point of comparison. Cyril is just Cyril, and Brian can like him and spend time with him without wincing, without dying a little inside, like Ryan _can’t_. He can genuinely have fun with him and do stupid childish things like play tag all over the apartment and have paper plane contests in his (theirs, now) messy living room and go have cotton candy and take all the scary vomit-inducing rides at the local fair because that’s what brothers do when they’re kids and Brian’s been missing out on all this.

And maybe they’ve actually all been, Brian on his own and Cyril and Ryan with their shitty childhood and their abusive father. And Brian can give that to Cyril, can enjoy it with him the way Ryan never could, not now, not ever again. But he can’t ever give it to Ryan. The only thing he can do for Ryan is make Cyril happy.

And, really, it turns out the arrangement isn’t just helping Cyril’s well-being and Ryan’s peace of mind, but Brian’s own sanity as well: at the end of the day, when Brian all but crashes through the door in a flurry of speechless nightmarish horrors and overwhelming disgust and pure _rage_ at his whole gender, there’s Cyril with his innocence and sunny smile and clinging hugs, his single-minded determination to make Brian feel better, keep Brian’s mind away from those things Brian can’t talk about even when he breaks down in tears in his little brother’s arms, those things Cyril can’t understand but that he knows are bad, knows Brian needs to cry (sob, wail and shake) away. Brian doesn’t mean to, he never does: he’s a cop and he should toughen it out, and Ryan’s trusted him with Cyril’s safety and happiness and Cyril’s _their brain-damaged innocent little brother_ – but he’s stronger than either of them gave him credit for. Strong enough to let Brian cry without letting it get to him – like he knows instinctively Brian needs it –, strong enough to pick him up and put him to bed even, when Brian really does collapse from exhaustion and distress.

He’s strong enough to be Brian’s rock.

It makes Brian hold on, makes him get up every morning and go to work and do his job as best as he possibly can, because he’s got someone counting on him. When it's all too much, Cyril’s there, and while Brian can never forget any of it, he can learn to live again, almost from scratch, like – and with – Cyril, step by step, and not let it control his life.

It saves him. And sometimes, he wonders if Ryan guessed it would, when he asked Brian to take Cyril in. Because really, Brian wouldn’t put it past him, to have seen the fraying around Brian’s edges and manipulated him into feeling better by giving him the one person to hold on to that Ryan had ever counted on. It only makes Brian feel awed and grateful and even more determined to do his best to make the world safer.

(Except: making his and Cyril’s world more safe makes _Ryan’s_ world even more dangerous – and that is a thought that can only make Brian less hesitant to pull the trigger.)


End file.
